You are here:

The Good Daughter

Review

Karin Slaughter's THE GOOD DAUGHTER is a taut, suspenseful novel with plenty of twists and turns, and characters who are finely limned and believable.

The main spotlight falls upon Charlotte “Charlie” Quinn, who suffered through a horrifying ordeal when she was younger, leaving her mother dead and her sister with a brain injury. Also necessary to the story is the girls' father, Rusty, who has acquired a terrible reputation in Pikeville, Georgia, where the family lives. His detractors hold these negative opinions because he is a defense lawyer who is responsible for getting a staggering number of his guilty clients off. Charlie, though, defends a totally different kind of client from her father --- they are not murderers, rapists or other evil people.

"THE GOOD DAUGHTER is an enthralling read for anyone who likes thrillers with a twist. It is gritty and profound, and will go beyond your expectations."

THE GOOD DAUGHTER opens on March 16, 1999, in a school where a student who has been bullied shoots dead the principal and a six-year-old girl. This takes up much of the beginning of the book until the time frame switches to the present day. While the novel is peppered with violence, none of it is gratuitous --- it all fits in with this story of a family torn apart by murder. When their house is broken into by two boys who shoot "Gamma," the girls' mother, and take the sisters into the woods at gunpoint, everyone in the family is changed forever. The girls take different routes in their lives and cope (or not) with this devastating tragedy. They are developed in such a way by Slaughter that they seem to float off the page and act out their lives for the reader in real time.

In addition, the story line does not read in a linear fashion. Rather, the plot is treated like a book should be, with the meat of the story unfolding in great layers. One does not know what is coming next, which makes for a much more interesting and entertaining read. In this way, the book is not like a regular crime novel nor does it resemble an ordinary police procedural. Surprises abound on almost every page.

THE GOOD DAUGHTER is an enthralling read for anyone who likes thrillers with a twist. It is gritty and profound, and will go beyond your expectations. If you prefer to wait until you can snuggle under a blanket to read it, grab it now and look forward to a gut-wrenching novel of psychological suspense.